Good news for the Edmonton Oilers by way of NHL insider Brian Lawton, news that the NHL salary cap is likely to go higher than the expected $92 million next year. This extra cap space will give owner Daryl Katz and his hockey bosses enough to secure top players Connor McDavid and Evan Bouchard and maybe others as well.
On Oilers Now, host Bob Stauffer asked Lawton what a cap of $94 or $95 million would mean to the Oilers.
It will help, Lawton said. “This is part of the planning when you’re managing a club. You have to make really tough calls on this. Generally, what had happened is a lot of people made the wrong calls in terms of where the cap was going, and they spent too quickly, and that lesson is still floating around out there. But now we’re in an exact opposite situation….
“When you look at Edmonton, they’re going to have plenty of money to sign the players they want to sign. I think they’re going to be in a position to actually add (players) in the future, that the cap is going to get bumped up.”
Lawton continued: “I see Edmonton having a lot more availability in the future.”
With added cap space, the Oilers should be scouring the league for the right player to bring in on defence, Lawton said. “This is going to be the single biggest decision of the season… It’s a massive decision. They need to find the right player, and a lot of analysis goes into that, and they need to make the right deal to bring that player home. Who it will be, nobody knows. There’s a lot of other teams that are hunting for the same type of return. But this is a big decision for them, the hockey operations department.”
At NHL.com, NHL commissioner Gary Bettman was quoted as saying the NHL salary cap is projected to be $92.4 million next season with the potential of it climbing slightly higher pending a possible negotiation between the League and NHL Players’ Association. This season’s salary cap is $88 million.
“The cap under the current guidelines in the Collective Bargaining Agreement would go up 5 percent. As we look at revenues, we’re going to have discussions with the Players’ Association about escrow levels and whether or not the cap can or should be tweaked a little more on an ongoing basis, but that’s something that we have to really work out with the Players’ Association and we’re having those discussions.”
My take
1. I’ve been worried about the total amount paid to Edmonton’s Top 4 players, given the history of NHL Cup winners in the Stanley Cup era. Only twice have teams paid more than 47 per cent of the total cap to their Top 4 players and gone on to win the Stanley Cup, and that happened in the early years of the Cap era, 2007 and 2008.
Recent Cup winners Colorado, Vegas and Florida paid 38.7, 41.5 and 44.3 per cent respectively of the cap on their Top 4 players.
2. In 2024, the Oilers paid their top four players 43.4 per cent of the cap. That will drop to 41.2 per cent of the cap this year, which should give the Oilers a good shot at the 2025 cup. But next year in the first year of the new Leon Draisaitl deal — even if the cap shoots up to $95 million — Edmonton will pay 48.2 per cent of the cap to its Top four.
Obviously every extra million of cap space will be significant for the Oilers, and that issue will be even more acute when Bouchard and McDavid sign their new deals. Bouchard’s next contract will also kick in next season, McDavid’s new deal, should he re-sign here, in 2006-07.